SAN JOSE LAS FLORES, Guatemala (AP) — The mother of a
Guatemalan boy whose body was found in the desert about a mile from
Texas’ southern border said Tuesday she begged him not set out on the
dangerous journey from their modest wood- and sheet-metal home high in
the northern Cuchumatanes mountains.
But Cipriana Juarez Diaz, ailing and bedridden, said her son Gilberto told her he wanted to earn money to
help her.
"I
said, ‘Son, it’s better if you stay. Everything I have here is for
you,’" the woman recalled Tuesday in an interview with a local reporter,
adding that she draped him with a white rosary as he left. "Now my son
is dead, and I think about how he suffered."
Gilberto Francisco
Ramos Juarez was found with the rosary still around his neck and a
brother’s Chicago phone number scribbled on the inside of his belt
buckle about two weeks ago. He was alone in brush less than a mile from
the nearest U.S. home, a South Texas sheriff said Monday. He apparently
got lost on his way north and likely died from the elements. An autopsy
did not find signs of trauma.
His birth certificate says he was 11 years old. But his father, Francisco Ramos Diaz, said Tuesday that
the boy was really 15.
Ramos
Diaz said Gilberto’s birth certificate carried the birth date of his
younger brother because it took the family several years to register
him. Because the parents couldn’t remember the exact date of Gilberto’s
birth, they gave the same date for both young sons, who became listed as
twins.
While hundreds of immigrants die crossing the border each
year, the discovery of Gilberto’s decomposed body in the Rio Grande
Valley on June 15 highlights the perils unaccompanied children face as
the U.S. government searches for ways to deal with record numbers of
children crossing into the country illegally.
Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra said he was the first child immigrant his office has found since he
became sheriff in April.
More
than 52,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended entering the
U.S. illegally since October, creating what President Barack Obama has
called an "urgent humanitarian situation." On Monday, Obama asked
Congress for more money and additional authority to deal with the surge
of youths, mostly from Central America. Obama wants flexibility to speed
the youths’ deportations and $2 billion to hire more immigration judges
and open more detention facilities.
The number of unaccompanied
immigrant children picked up along the border has been rising for three
years as they fled pervasive gang violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El
Salvador. More recently, children and parents have said they heard
children traveling alone and parents traveling with young kids would be
released by authorities and allowed to continue to their destination.
Many
of the children turn themselves in to the first law enforcement person
they see, so Guerra said it was unusual to find a child in this more
remote area — near La Joya, about 20 miles west of McAllen. Sometimes
smugglers, known as coyotes, leave people behind if they can’t go on;
other times a group may scatter when authorities approach.
About
445 immigrants died along the U.S.-Mexico border last year, according to
the Border Patrol. The Pima County medical examiner in Arizona, which
is the perennial leader in immigrant deaths, recorded 168 of the deaths;
of the 70 where an age was confirmed, none were younger than 13.
Gilberto
set out from chilly, rugged terrain, the peaks and canyons of an area
only accessible by dirt road. Associated Press reporters hiked a rocky,
muddy path for 45 minutes to reach the village.
The boy’s family
said they had last heard from him about 25 days before his body was
found. At that time, he was in Reynosa, Mexico, waiting to cross the
border. His father told authorities the boy was traveling with a migrant
smuggler.
Investigators were able to reach the boy’s brother in
Chicago; his phone number was one of three on the boy’s belt. It’s not
uncommon for immigrants to put relatives’ phone numbers on their
clothing because scraps of paper can get lost or wet during their
journey.
The boy’s brother gave authorities his father’s phone number in Guatemala, and the dad identified the
boy’s personal items.
The
cause of death has not been determined, but authorities suspect heat
stroke, Guerra said. The boy was no longer wearing a shirt when he was
found.
___
Associated Press writer Sonia Perez D. reported
this story in San Jose Las Flores and Christopher Sherman reported from
Edinburg, Texas.